CODEWITHSUNDEEP
pythondjangodatabasedjango-rest-framework
c_sagan
c_sagan

Reputation: 512

In Django with Django REST Framework, what is the best way to update old objects when adding new field?

I have a database with a model that I'm updating by adding a new field. When I added the field, all the old objects in the database populated that field with an empty string value. I need these fields to have values.

In the future, objects be forced to contain a value by either specification or a default value.

What is the best way to update this field for the old objects?

I have a couple ideas but I'm not sure if one is 'proper.' Again, this is something that only needs to be done once, as all future objects will have all required data.

  1. Enable PUT by adding the UpdateModelMixin to the ViewSet, update the fields, then disable PUT (I do not want PUT permanently allowed)
  2. Create some sort of migration script to do the updates for me.
  3. Something I'm missing?

Upvotes: 0

Views: 73

Answers (1)

Ryan
Ryan

Reputation: 1072

I may be misunderstanding the question, but when you create a new field you can specify the default value you want to populate into the existing database so you can give it any value:

https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/2.2/ref/models/fields/#default

If you can't roll back and re-create the field, I would use the Django shell to do it since this is a one-time change, something similar to:

ModelName.objects.update(field='newvalue')

That way you don't need to change your configuration or your code or anything.

Upvotes: 1

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